A few facts about Laos for those who know little about it:
Shaped like a palm tree and covering roughly the same area as Great Britain, land locked Laos is hemmed in by China, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Cambodia. It is pronounced "Low", rhyming with cow (the "s" was added by the French when they were establishing French Indochina and has since been dropped).
It is only just emerging from nearly 300 years of war with Burma, China, Siam(Thailand), France and the USA and after 20 years of virtual isolation from the outside world, it is a...

Beware - Vang Vieng is a trap! With a typical day consisting of one of the following options:
-Option 1: Get up late, walk 150m and get a tuk tuk to drop you and your tube up the river, and float down the 3km stretch of river that is lined with more Beer Lao bars than you can imagine. While slowly 'tubing' downstream all afternoon there is plenty of opportunity to talk to other 'tubers', jump of the river bank or swings and try some of the other relaxants that may be offered to you if that takes you fancy. After 'tubing' it is time to...

After changing money in Luang Prabang we headed of to Vang Vien. We were delighted to find that changing 100 US Dollars makes you a millionaire in Laos but soon got over the novelty when we tried to stash the wads of 'kip' about our persons!
The only travel option to Vang Vien is via the infamous Route 13 which over the years has seen a number of hijackings and other such unsavoury events. For added safety we hired a minibus as the general thought is only governemtn buses get targetted. However after about 20k we say the first of many...